Chris Smith: what more does a guy have to do?

[Crash2303]

I feel bad for Chris- it seems like every other pitcher in the system has gotten a call up to try to plug up the hole in the Brewers bullpen (actually i believe 8 pitchers).

and yet, all he's done is go lights out this year as Nashville's CLOSER. he was lights out last year in AAA too, and posted a pretty respectable 4.11 ERA with Milwaukee as well. what more does he have to do?

eam	League	W	L	ERA	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	GO/AO	AVG
NAS	PCL	2	1	1.83	21	0	0	0	15	19.2	17	6	4	3	6	27	1.23	.233

[dadofandrew]

He needs a team to ask Doug about him, as Doug would never keep a minor league veteran in AAA if he could be accruing major league time with another club.

 

He showed what he had last year, two decent major league pitches, and the ability to work often. He's a decent option as a middle reliever, but his ceiling is limited. He's also vertically challenged, so scouts will have to be impressed with his stuff, as they won't be by his build.

[battlekow]

He's been hurt by a really high HR rate in the bigs.

[dadofandrew]

3 HR's in 19 IP is very high too.

[JohnBriggs12]

Despite the high HR rate, he showed last year he can get major league hitters out. Opposing hitters hit just .232 with an OBP of only .317. Before closing last year with 3 rough outings, his ERA was sitting at a very respectable 3.07. There's absolutely no reason to think he couldn't do that again and compared to what we've seen out of the likes of Vargas, Hawkins, and Hoffman, that would be very welcome.

[brewers4eric]

The JS Online was always printing a statistic where the Brewers only won one game in which Chris Smith pitched. It was the big comeback win against Cleveland, the only other role that he had was in mopup duty. When the Brewers are ready to cut Suppan loose, I think that they will have a spot for Smith.

 

Based on 2009, the Brewers probably know what they have in Smith and are looking at their other options at this time. Smith seemed to live and die with the fastball, low and outside. When he couldn't locate it or when he was squeezed by an umpire and had to throw something in the zone, he usually paid for it with a long ball.

[DHonks]

yes, that's true that he didn't pitch in winning efforts. But I'd happily take Anthony Young now despite his personal losing streak of something like 28 games

[filthyfrog]

Smith's main obstacle right now is simply that he's not on the 40-man roster. With Gamel and Riske due to come off the 60-day DL soon, that probably won't change for a while, either.

[dadofandrew]

Smith has a nice off-speed pitch, be it a curve or change. He doesn't throw it for strikes often, which is why he's not as effective as Axford (that and about 5 mph and 5 inches of height, which I assume gives Axford more "bend", or something like that).

 

If I were building an expansion team, I'd happily go with 7 relievers just like Smith and see what happened.

[Crash2303]

you're right, filthy frog- even when Suppan is let go (somehow), Riske's probably the pitcher who's going to come up. so barring injury (which isn't that unlikely) it might be September again before he's called up again- he must be pissed.